Mileage Upgrades (at Airport) - Econ to PE

This forum is most useful and thanks to all with my questions so far.

I intend to fly back to the US from the UK on Jan 2nd '05. I will be in PE but my G/Friend will be in Economy (she is a lot thriftier than I am ) - If she's on a cheapo ticket in the back but has by then over 10,000 miles, can she do a one way upgrade from Econ to PE to sit with me?

The upgrades guide is great on this site BUT, there is a question of whether being on some Econ tickets makes it hard to do a mileage upgrade.

Question: what are the chances of her getting upgraded with her miles at the airport? Are they really picky or are they generally very liberal?

Thanks,

P.S. Is there an option if the answer is no for me to buy her an upgrade, if so is it a good price or ridiculous? I only ask as once I asked to upgrade on BA from WT to WT+ and they quoted 900GBP!!! [:0] [BA wonders why it's loosing market share]

Never done any mileage upgrades, and from what i've read, i think this can get a bit complicated if you dont do it in advance. In that it depends on availability of seats, and mileage upgrage availability. Some-one will be able to clarify a bit more.

http://www.v-flyer.com/upgrades.asp The upgrade guide has a bit about paid upgrades at the airport.

As an idea, last december I did a paid upgrade from Econ to UC (PE was full) on the JFK-LHR route and they charged me GBP800. Which as the upgrade guide points out, this isnt necessarily as cheap as a Z fare, but considering I was on a cheap Y ticket I didnt think it was too bad.

The chances depend on how busy the flight is in each class, I'd suggest you have three chances.

1) Phone up the Flying CLub and ask if you can use miles to purchase the upgrade. They'll look at the class and say yes or no, if it is not a qualifying class then..

2) At the airport go to the ticket desk and ask if you can use miles to upgrade, if the flight is looking full in economy then you have a good chance even if seat does not officially qualify...if the answer is still no...

3) Ask the ticket desk how much an upgrade would cost in cold hard cash. Again it'll depend on how full the flight is

Vslf

AFAIK if you use cash to upgrade you get the upgraded miles and TP but if you use miles you get the origonal class miles & TP

Thats right yes[?]

I've done both. Earlier this year I upgraded with miles from PE K Class to UC (UCS:D).

In the past I've paid to upgrade on BGI and MCO routes. The BGI route was £275 each way from Y to W, and MCO was $500 from deeply discounted EC to PE (that one was some time ago though).

As mentioned above, it doesn't hurt to check with the ticket desk on the day. The worst they can say is NO!!

Matt

Thanks to you all... we'll give them a call ahead of time and see what the deal is.

As Brit's living in the US I'm sure that the flight on the 2nd of Jan is going to be absolutely packed as it's a Sunday and we have to go back to work on the Monday [:(]

Thanks again,

JC

[RichardMannion]

In terms of using 10k miles to upgrade her ticket, she will need the Economy ticket to be booked in the right qualifying class:

Country of fare origin
UK Y,B,L - Flights originating from London to Tokyo exclude L class

Japan Y,B,L,M - Flights originating from Tokyo to London include M class

Caribbean Y, B, L

USA Y,B

Hong Kong Y, B, L

China
South Africa
Nigeria
India Y, B, L, M

(http://www.v-flyer.com/codes.asp)
These are the highest classes of fare in economy - you will more likely found you are in one of the other fare classes, which you cannot use miles to upgrade from. Therefore you would need to pay the difference between the booked fare and the next available qualifying fare that is able to use points for an upgrade.

TBH, you may find it is cheaper to pay the revenue based upgrade cost on the day.

Thanks,
Richard

Richard.

Thanks for the update, I'm sure she's on a lower class of Econ ticket. As I don't mind paying 275GBP to move her up. I just hope her ticket is too deeply discounted to prevent even that!

JC.